"You think they're moving men to stop him?" Mary asked. Her husband nodded again. Excitement blazed through her. "If you're right, we've got a chance to be free!" And maybe this has been a war all along, and I don't have to think I'm a murderer. Maybe. Please, God.
Cincinnatus Driver watched a spectacle he had hoped he would never see, a spectacle he'd gone to Kentucky to keep from seeing: Confederate troops marching into Covington. He was, by then, just starting to get up on crutches and move around. He supposed he was lucky. The auto that hit him could easily have killed him. There were times, when he'd lain in the hospital and then back at his parents' house, that he wished it would have.
His mother took care of him as if he were a little boy. She plainly thought he was. All the years that had gone by since might as well not have happened. She didn't even realize anything was wrong. That, to Cincinnatus, was the cruelest part of her long, slow slide into senility.
And his father took care of both of them, with as much dignity as he could muster and without much hope. Some of the neighbors helped, as they found the chance. His mother wandered off a couple of times, but she didn't get far. People watched her more closely than they had till Cincinnatus got hit. That was funny, in a bitter way.
Getting out of the house for a little while felt good to Cincinnatus. He'd stared at the cracked, water-stained plaster of the ceiling for too long. He was weak as a kitten and he still got dreadful headaches that aspirin did nothing to knock down, but he was alive and he was upright. When a little more strength returned, he would figure out how to get himself and his father and mother back to the USA. Meanwhile…
Meanwhile, he stumped along the neglected sidewalks of the colored district of Covington toward the parade route. The whole district seemed even more rundown than it had when he came back to Covington. It also seemed half deserted, and so it was. A lot of Negroes had already fled to the United States.
He glanced over to his father, who walked beside him, ready to steady him if he stumbled. "You sure Ma be all right while we're gone?"
"I ain't sure o' nothin," Seneca Driver answered, "but I reckon so." He walked on for a few paces, then said, "One thing I ain't sure of is how come you wants to see these bastards comin' back."
Cincinnatus wasn't altogether sure of that himself. After a little thought, he said, "I got to remind myself why I want to git back to Iowa so bad, maybe."
"Maybe." His father sounded deeply skeptical.
Seneca had reason to sound that way, too. Only a handful of blacks headed for the parade route. Most of the people who came out to see this underscoring of the return of Confederate sovereignty were white men with Freedom Party pins in their lapels-or, if they didn't wear lapels, as many didn't, on the front of denim jackets or wool sweaters. Cincinnatus hadn't been the target of looks like the ones they gave him for many years. People in Des Moines thought Negroes curious beasts, not dangerous ones.
One of the blacks on the street was a familiar face: Lucullus Wood. He'd visited Cincinnatus at the hospital, and several times at his parents' house. As far as a Negro could be, Lucullus was a man to reckon with in Covington. A generation earlier, his father had been, too.
Seeing Cincinnatus and Seneca, Lucullus came across the street to say hello. "Ain't this a fine day?" he said. A Freedom Party man might have used the same words. A Freedom Party man might even have used the same tone of voice. But the words and the tone would have had a very different meaning in a Freedom Party man's mouth. Lucullus understood irony-blacks who'd been born in the CSA understood irony from the moment they could talk- and no Party stalwart ever would.
"Never thought I'd see it," Cincinnatus agreed.
None of the plump, eager white men in earshot could have taken exception to his words or tone, either. In fact, one of them turned to another and said, "You see? Even the niggers is glad to have the damnyankees gone."
"They know they was well off before," his friend replied.
Cincinnatus didn't look at Lucullus. Neither of them looked at Seneca. He didn't look at them. None of them had any trouble knowing what the other two were thinking. Remarking on it would have been a waste of breath.
Off to the south, Cincinnatus heard a peculiar noise: partly musical, partly a low, mechanical rumble. Both pieces of the noise got louder as it came closer. Before too long, Cincinnatus recognized the music. A marching band was blaring out "Dixie," playing the tune for all it was worth.
"That there song used to be against the law here," Lucullus said. By the way he said it, he thought it was too bad "Dixie" had been illegal. Cincinnatus knew better. A casual listener-a white listener-wouldn't have.
"Wonder what ever happened to that Luther Bliss," Cincinnatus said. "Reckon he ain't never gonna show his face here no more. Don't miss him one damn bit." Since the former head of the Kentucky State Police had thrown him in jail, most of him meant that. The rest, though, couldn't help remembering how hard and how well Bliss had fought Confederate diehards-and anyone else he didn't care for.
"Reckon you's right," Lucullus answered. Cincinnatus sent him a sharp look. A casual listener wouldn't have heard anything wrong with his words there, either. Cincinnatus wondered if he knew more than he was letting on.
Here came the band. The Freedom Party men-and the smaller number of women with them-burst into applause. A lot of them began to sing. Cincinnatus couldn't applaud, not with his hands on the crutches. His father and Lucullus did. He couldn't blame them. Better safe than sorry.
Behind the band marched several companies of Confederate soldiers. Their uniforms didn't look much different from the ones C.S. troops had worn during the Great War, but there were changes. Most of them had to do with comfort and protection. The collars on these tunics were open at the neck. The cut was looser, less restrictive. Their helmets came down farther over the ears and the back of the neck than the Great War models had. They weren't the steel pots U.S. soldiers wore, but they weren't much different from them.
The rifles they carried… "Funny-lookin' guns," Cincinnatus said to Lucullus in a low voice.
"Gas-operated. Don't need to work the bolt to chamber a round after the first one in the clip." Lucullus spoke with authority. "They's new. Not everybody's got 'em. They is very bad news, though."
Not even all the parading soldiers carried the new rifles. Some had submachine guns instead. Cincinnatus didn't see any with ordinary, Great War-vintage Tredegars. The Confederate States couldn't arm as many men as the United States. They seemed to want to make sure the men they did have would put a lot of lead in the air.
The barrels that grumbled and clanked up the street were different from the ones Cincinnatus remembered from the Great War, too. They carried their cannon in a turret on top of the hull. They also looked as if they could go a lot faster than the walking pace that had been their top speed a generation earlier.
Trucks towed artillery pieces. Fighters and bombers with the C.S. battle flag on wings and tail roared low overhead. More marching soldiers finished the parade.
"Wonder what they think o' this on the other side of the Ohio," Cincinnatus said. The city that was nearly his namesake lay right across the river from Covington.
"If they's happy, they's crazy," Lucullus said after looking around to make sure no white was paying undue attention. "Jake Featherston, he promised there wouldn't be no Confederate soldiers in Kentucky for twenty-five years. He jump the gun just a little bit, I reckon."
Cincinnatus' father looked around, too. "We done seen the parade," he said. "What I reckon is, we better git back to our own part o' town."
He was bound to be right. Even Negroes who weren't doing anything to anybody were liable to be fair game in Covington. Moving on his crutches made Cincinnatus sweat with effort and pain in spite of the chilly day, but he moved anyhow. Once back inside the colored district, he said, "We got to get out of here. Ain't easy no more, now that this here is a Confederate state, but we got to."